by Snow, Lucy
His smile wavered for only a moment before it came back in full force. “Did. Mind changed.” He threw up his hands as if he didn’t know what was going on. “Things happen.”
“What’re you going to do with me?”
“Still choose. First, off bus. No San Francisco today.” But he made no move.
I wanted to shout, I wanted to scream, I wanted to call for help, but he was sitting right next to me, and no one I remembered within 50 feet seemed like the kind of person to help out a stranger in a bind. There was one security guard near the ticket counter…
“Think call help? Bad idea.” He glanced downward into his jacket and I caught the glint off what must have been a fairly ferocious knife. “Blade still faster than help.”
I slumped back into my seat, all hope drained away in an instant. How had I been so dumb? Of course Arkady had followed me from the house. I knew he had been watching me and I still walked right into his trap.
Arkady looked around, still smiling, as other people got on the bus. “Look all nice people leaving city.” He waved to a couple of them, who didn’t respond and just took their seats.
When the influx of new people died down, he grabbed me by the hand, and I recoiled in horror. “Come. We go.” He stood up and pulled me up after him. I looked around at all the faces of the other passengers who couldn’t care less, who just wanted to get on the road, and I gulped. No help here. I was stuck with him.
Arkady handed me my bag from the overhead bin and I slung it over my shoulder as we stepped to the front of the bus. The driver looked at us a little funny. “She change mind. Missed me,” Arkady joked to him as we both stepped off the bus. The driver shrugged and closed the door behind us.
The wind had picked up and I shivered, partly from the cold and partly because the man who’d killed my ex boyfriend had found me and pulled me off a bus out of town, and had a giant knife in his jacket.
“Come.” Arkady looked back at me, his grip tight like a vice. He started walking and I followed him, silently hoping for Ronan to jump out of nowhere and rescue me. Didn’t anyone we pass by see who I was with? This was a violent Russian mobster, people?! Why wasn’t anyone calling the police? This guy shouldn’t be allowed to walk around in public!
No one heard my silent cries, and soon we were out of the bus station and walking down the busy streets like any two random people.
“Where are you taking me?”
As soon as the words came out of my mouth, Arkady turned a corner and we went down into an alley. “Come. This way.”
We kept walking, and I wondered if he’d parked around here. I had no idea where we were going, but it probably wasn’t on foot.
Sure enough, we rounded another corner and came across a beautiful black Mercedes. Despite the squalor of the surrounding alley, the car was in pristine shape.
I stood there looking at it, just about to ask where we were going, when I turned and saw something coming down on my head just before I crumpled to the ground and blacked out.
Chapter 21 - Ronan
Leaving that house was one of the toughest things I’ve ever had to do. But I knew as I walked away that it was the right thing. I might have wanted to be with Kara; in another life we might have been something wonderful for each other, but that was just a fantasy. Reality was the family, reality was Pulse, reality was the revolving door of new girls at my place every night.
That was what I was comfortable with. Like it or not, that was how I was and it was high time that I get right with that, because my resolve and focus had been slipping lately.
At least by now Kara was out of town. I knew from the way we left things that as soon as I left she was probably packing and heading out the door. I knew that if I were to go back to the cottage even right now it would be empty. Not that I was going to go back there any time soon. Nah, I’d stick to the penthouse for a while. That was where my real life was anyway.
Nah, I’d probably get a call from her in a couple weeks from Albuquerque or Seattle and she’d tell me how happy she was, and how wonderful her knew life was. And I’d smile and wish her well, and she’d try to pay me back the money I’d given her, and I’d refuse, and we’d go back and forth, and then I’d end the call and find a girl to fuck to start the moving on process.
I could already see how this would go.
This path made sense to me.
It was the right thing to do.
Now I was back at work, Kara was gone, and all was right with the world. I’d even made plans with both Sarah and Chelsea, each one for a separate night starting with tonight, and culminating with a threesome on the third night. I told them that I needed to get over some some rough stuff in my life, and both girls had been very accommodating, each of them independently offering to make themselves available during the day if I wanted.
That was nice of them. Good to get things back to normal around here. I’d already had a meeting with Sam and thanked him for how well he’d handled the clubs these last few days while I had other things on my mind. He took it all in stride and said that he could tell something was bothering me. I told him that whatever it was, it was headed out of town by now, and he smiled and left my office.
I threw myself back into my work, the only thing I really could do, especially since my evening plans were already made. I was just getting back into it when the phone rang.
I didn’t recognize the number. That was odd; I almost never got calls here I didn’t recognize. I let it ring out, but instead of leaving a message, whoever it was just called back immediately after.
I picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Ronan. Arkady.”
I closed my eyes and sat back in my chair, already tired of this conversation even in its infancy.
“How did you get this number, Arkady?”
“Need right phone book.”
“This number is unlisted.”
“Always list somewhere.”
I sighed. “Fine. What can I do for you?” There was literally nothing I wanted to do for Arkady except perhaps think up creative ways to end his life.
“Negotiations. Offer. Thoughts?”
“I haven’t had much time to look them over, Arkady, but you heard me the first time. They’re almost entirely unacceptable on their face. Totally unreasonable.”
He laughed into the phone, loud, and I held the receiver away from my ear, a look of disgust clear on my face to all who might happen to see me just then. “Thought so. Accept reality, Ronan.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Your family old. Out..dated. Russians new. Strong. Take what get, and we don’t get angry. Understand?”
“I think I get what you’re saying, despite your rough grasp of the English language, Arkady, but you have to know this is not a good way to negotiate.”
He laughed again. “Negotiations joke. We control city now. Accept or die.”
“If that’s how you’re going to be, then we don’t have much to talk about.” I held the receiver to my ear, expecting to hear some invective in Russian before Arkady hung up, but I didn’t get it.
Arkady’s voice changed tone suddenly, so much that it sounded almost entirely like a new person. “What you want, Ronan?”
“I beg your pardon.”
“You. Not family. You. What you want?”
“I want to see the family succeed, I want to look out for our interests. What else am I supposed to say?”
“Missing point, Ronan. You. As man. What you want?”
“I don’t see how this is your business, Arkady. Why is this relevant?”
Now it was Arkady’s turn to sigh over the phone. “No hope for you.” He cleared his throat, and it sounded like he was fiddling with something. “Check text messages.”
I reached in my pocket, because just then my phone started buzzing with new notifications. I picked it out and thumbed the screen. I’d received pictures from a number that wasn’t in my phone. “What are these?” I asked
as they downloaded.
Arkady chuckled. “Just look.”
I held my breath as the app loaded, and when I saw the pictures I nearly threw my phone across the room.
They were all of Kara. Tied up and gagged. I could see that she was awake, but there was more than a small amount of blood on her clothing. She looked scared and tired, like she was hoarse from screaming behind the gag.
Arkady had her.
I could barely breathe. I’d just left her no less than three hours ago and now she was his prisoner? Shit. How could I have been so stupid as to leave her alone like that?
With all the shit going down right now with the Russians of course I should have known they’d know about the cottage and have someone watching us. Fuck.
“Seen pictures? Very nice,” came Arkady’s ghostly voice across the phone.
“Listen you son of a bitch, if you hurt her…”
“Hurt? Already done. More coming.”
“What do you want, you sick fuck? If I don’t get her back I’ll find you. Wherever you are.” I picked up my phone again, barely able to look at the screen through the pain that was clear on Kara’s face, and I forced myself to look at the background, of the room she was in, see if I could place it. See if I could figure out where she was. No dice.
“I make easy, Ronan. Come to me, we resolve.”
“When and where?”
“Now. Warehouse. You know warehouse.”
The one where Arkady killed Kara’s junkie ex-boyfriend a few days ago. The killing that started this whole mess. “I know it,” I said through clenched teeth. I got up from the chair and gathered my keys and started out of my office.
“Good. Come alone. If not, she dies. Understood?”
“Do not touch her, Arkady!” I yelled as I ran out of the office.
“Too late, Ronan,” was all I heard from the other end.
That and Arkady laughing and laughing. It echoed in my ears.
Chapter 22 - Kara
When I woke up I didn’t know where I was at first. My head hurt. I’d had headaches before; everyone this. This wasn’t a headache. This was a head…smash. I held my eyes closed, and wanted to lift my hands and feel around my head for any damage, but I quickly realized that I couldn’t move them.
I was tied up. Wonderful.
I couldn’t hear anything, and I could tell even with my eyes closed that the lights wherever I was weren’t bright, so I blinked a few times and slowly opened my eyes.
The walls were dark, the overhead lights very high up and not too strong, their bulbs flickering off in the distance. They cast a low glow over the entire room. The air was stale and I felt like I’d been here before.
The room itself was empty in the center. I turned my head around, slowly at first, trying to get a better view. It looked like I was alone. There were stacked boxes off to either side along the walls, and I figured they extended behind me too.
Then it hit me. I knew where I was.
I was in the warehouse. The warehouse where I’d seen Arkady kill Greg just a few days earlier. I couldn’t believe it had taken me even this long to recognize it; the room was indelibly etched on my mind forever.
In fact, I was sitting just a few feet from where it had happened. I looked down and thought I could make out the traces of hastily cleaned blood on the floor. It left a very slight dark stain where the puddle had been. I shuddered involuntarily as the memory game rushing back.
I’d was hiding behind boxes, trying not to make any noise and not be seen. Greg must have been a little too full of confidence, he didn’t even look behind him once during the entire trip here, not a care in the world.
The air had been stuffy and warm, uncharacteristically warm given the time of year. Greg rolled in nonchalantly to the center of the room, looking around with a big smile on his face, like he knew he was about to score big.
Then, the conversation with Arkady, the suddenly dawning fear rolling across Greg’s face as he started to understand that he might not make it out of the warehouse alive.
Then his attempt to salvage the situation, the arguing, the pleading, and then…the shooting.
I could almost hear the gunshots ringing out through the giant hall of the warehouse all over again. I looked down and checked out the chair I was in, and saw the ropes that kept me in it. They looked expertly tied, and as I struggled, trying to escape, they gave me no respite at all. As a last desperate attempt I tried to bounce the chair toward one of the exits to my left, but after a good minute of trying, I only succeeded in tiring myself out with only a shift of a few inches to show for it.
I was trapped. I couldn’t go anywhere like this.
I was at Arkady’s mercy. The very thought made me cower in fear, as much as one could cower when tied up so well.
The door on the far side of the large room opened, and I could see the silhouette of a man, but this wasn’t a dancing situation. I couldn’t tell who it was just by looking at him as he walked toward me, but from his blond hair I had a pretty good idea that it was Arkady.
When he came close enough that I could see his face, I saw that he had that trade mark huge smile on his face, his eyes focused intently on me.
“Awake!” Arkady shouted to me as he noticed that I was moving around. “Good! Welcome.” He lifted his hands up to the sky and twirled around like a dancer, showing off the vast expanse of the building to me. “How like?”
“Let me go!”
“Why want leave now? Awake!” he repeated, coming closer still. I saw that he still wore the same ratty suit as before, but this time he didn’t have his coat on, and the long and nasty looking knife hanging at his belt swung free, catching the light from above in ways that sometimes shined in my direction.
I struggled again against the bonds, but it was mostly just for show. They weren’t getting any looser - in fact it felt like they were getting tighter the more I tested them.
“You like ropes?” Arkady asked, the glow in his eyes getting stronger. His voiced dropped lower as he stepped closer. “I like ropes,” he said, almost like he was somewhere else.
“What do you want from me?”
He brightened and turned is face to the right, off to a table on the side. “Want show knives!” He danced his way toward the table, and then wheeled it back over to me - I hadn’t noticed the wheels on it till it started rolling.
The table was covered with a thick dark tablecloth, which Arkady pulled away with a sweeping gesture after stopping it right next to me.
The table was covered in knives, no two the same. All different shapes and lengths of blades, serrated and flat bladed, basically everything you could think of, at least half the ‘collection’ were knives no one but an aficionado could dream up.
It was a collection of knives to make a chef get on his knees and thank the heavens.
And I could tell Arkady enjoyed using each and everyone of them. The way he looked at them, the way he licked his lips as his gaze wandered over them, I knew this man was not just a member of knife wielder’s anonymous, he was president of the fan club.
And he was going to use those on me. I couldn’t look anymore, turning my head away as far as I could given the ropes that bound me, and shutting my eyes.
“Please! I don’t know anything! I won’t say anything! Just let me leave, please!”
Arkady stared at me like I’d grown a second head. “Can’t say if don’t know.”
“Exactly! Please just let me go and I’ll never say a word about this!”
Arkady’s hand dropped down to the table, hovering over the veritable pile of knives, as if he was trying to decide which one to use first. “Can’t say if can’t speak either,” he said, a note of finality in his voice.
I screamed. I screamed as loud as I could because hopefully someone would hear me, hopefully someone would call the police, and hopefully someone would come and rescue me. I screamed because if I didn’t scream I would just whimper and cry, and I wasn’t about to give Arkady
that kind of satisfaction.
I expected Arkady to try and stop me, to cover up my mouth and keep me silent, or to threaten me with enough pain that I would stop screaming. He did none of those things. He just stood there and watched me, a small smile creeping across his face.
I screamed until I had nothing left in me, till I couldn’t go on anymore, then I stopped let the bindings hold my head up as I closed my eyes and breathed deep, searching for another thing to try, anything that I thought could help me stay alive a few minutes longer.
“All done?” Arkady asked, his head cocked to the side like I was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. “Got all out?”
I shook my head, gearing up for another round, but Arkady paid me such little attention that my scream died in my throat. Instead of watching me scream my head off, he turned to his table of knives, and pulled out an oil cloth from a second level below the main table, and started cleaning the knives.
The way he picked each one up and inspected it, turning it around till it caught the light and he could see the surface, would have been intriguing to watch if I hadn’t been watching a madman cleaning the tools he was planning to use to torture me.
A few minutes later, he was done, and I watched as he picked one knife up, a serrated, angry looking blade about 8 inches long, and came back over to me. By now I was all tired out and I just wished that he would make it quick.
Arkady squared in front of me, our eyes at the same level. “Still scared?”
It was such a ludicrous question that my answer tumbled out even though I didn’t want to egg him on at all. “Of course I’m still scared.”
He looked genuinely surprised. “Why scared?”
“Because, you sick bastard, you’re about to use those knives on me.”
Arkady threw his head back and roared with laugher, the sound of which echoed throughout the large warehouse. He kept going, like what I’d said was the funniest thing in the world.
When he’d finally composed himself, Arkady looked back at me, lifting up the knife in his hand. The other one still hung from his belt, glinting like it was angry it hadn’t been chosen for service this time. “Think knives for you?” He laughed again.
